


just you and me tonight

by HalfFizzbin



Series: Presidents of Emotional Stupidity [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (with werewolves), Alternate Universe, Do I have to warn for that?, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Peter dies, Pining, Politics, Prequel, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:19:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfFizzbin/pseuds/HalfFizzbin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The long, convoluted road to a werewolf-friendly White House is paved with a whole lot of denial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just you and me tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlotQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotQueen/gifts).



> This was commissioned by [ChaosDragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaosDragon/pseuds/ChaosDragon) for the [Sterek Campaign's auction for Wolf Haven](http://sterekcampaign.tumblr.com/post/37168920981/the-sterek-campaigns-fourth-call-to-love-is-a). Chaos wanted a prequel to "if your color's blue," and it was due like TWO MONTHS AGO **hurls self off cliff**
> 
> I'M TRYING HONEY. SO HARD ♥ 
> 
> (Rating is for later chapters. Think of it as a pledge. A porny pledge.)

Stiles Stilinski should  _never_ have become the Sheriff of Beacon Hills. 

It’s something of a town joke— _Nepotism at its finest_ and  _Sheriff Stilinski’s got the longest rap sheet in town_ and  _Like father, nothing at all like son, OH MY GOD._ (Stiles knows about the jokes, because he’s usually the one making them.)

It was just supposed to be  _temporary_ , back then—everyone at the station knew Stiles, and he’d gone through the training just for the hell of it when he was bored over the summer, and he figured hey, why not harass his dad into deputizing him? Just until he decided what he  _really_ wanted to do with his life, of course. And in the meantime, he could keep an eye on his dad and prevent him from jumping in front of bullets and eating bear claws and drinking gallons of terrible coffee. 

But then the years just sort of got away from him, and his dad got shot in the chest—nothing fatal, but serious enough to sideline him from rigorous activity for the indeterminate future—and Stiles wound up in charge at the tender and bewildered age of 27. No one ever mentioned his slightly-fudged qualifications, or suggested that he give up the job to someone more experienced; Stiles pretended it was because he was so devastatingly charming, but more likely it was because they all loved his dad so much that their nostalgia crippled their better judgment. 

On nights like this one, though, the awkwardness of all that authority is almost worth it.

“Do you know how fast you were going, and also, are you aware this is the sexiest car in creation?” Stiles says, shining a flashlight into the open window of the shiny black Camaro he just pulled over. 

“No, yes, and can you please write me a ticket so I can be on my way?” snaps the guy inside, and  _holy shit._

“License and registration,” Stiles says, and he’s way too old for his voice to be breaking nervously but  _he can’t help it._ The guy is beyond gorgeous, all dramatic jawline and stubble and  _pretty eyelashes,_ of all things—seriously, Stiles is thinking about falling to his knees and writing an impromptu poem to the way those eyelashes are casting long shadows across the guy’s beautiful cheekbones. He drops the flashlight a little, just so he doesn’t have to look at them anymore. 

“I don’t have  _time,”_ the guy insists, but he wrenches the glove box open and shoves his papers against Stiles’ chest anyway.

“Where could you  _possibly_ be racing at… 11pm on a Sunday night? Midnight church service? In a leather jacket?”

“Maybe it’s a nontraditional parish,” the guy says without missing a beat, and Stiles swears his eyes flash bright  _blue_ at him for a second.

Which makes a lot more sense once Stiles takes a better look at the license in his hand—Derek Hale, 31 years old.  _Hair: brown. Eyes: hazel._ ** _W_** _._

_Werewolf._

“Isn’t it a full moon?” Stiles looks up to check, but the moon is obscured by the clouds. “I thought you guys liked to lay low on the crazy nights.”

“I’m perfectly capable of controlling myself,” Derek says coldly, punctuating the claim by snatching his license back with fully-extended claws. “Why. You  _scared_?”

“You’re the one who should be scared, Lon Cheney; I just clocked you doing 70 in 35mph zone.” Stiles sighs at the massive tear Derek left in his ticket book with his claws. “Really? Was that necessary?”

Derek looks genuinely thrown, and Stiles is so busy preening that he doesn’t see the car racing toward them until it’s too late.

He comes to lying on the side of the road, the sound of rending metal still ringing in his ears and his chest still throbbing from where Derek pushed him out of the way at the last minute. The Camaro is  _totaled,_ crunched in almost all the way to the front windows, and Stiles can see blood on the edges of the shattered windshield. The giant truck that rear-ended it doesn’t look much better. Stiles can’t see any bodies. 

“Sheriff, get  _out_  of here!” someone roars at him, and oh, right. Werewolves. 

Derek is fighting a little ways down the road with a dark, menacing shape that Stiles assumes to be the driver of the truck. Derek is all fanged and clawed and furry in the face, like a normal werewolf, but the thing he’s fighting is like nothing Stiles has ever seen in his  _life._ It’s twisted, and ferocious, and snarling like it’ll tear the whole  _world_ down if it gets half a chance. 

And then it gets Derek under him, claws at his throat, and Stiles fires his revolver three times before he can think better of it. 

It’s not enough to drop it; of  _course_ it isn’t. Stiles has wolfsbane rounds back at the station, but he always forgets to bring them on patrol. He’s never had to fire his gun at a wolf before; mostly, they hate to cause trouble. The ones careless enough to get arrested, well… it never ends well for them. 

This wolf, though—if that’s even what it is—seems completely beyond reason, and Stiles is definitely going to die. 

“Hey, whoa,” he says, holding shaking hands up in front of him when the wolf-thing whips its head around and starts advancing on him, barely limping from the three bullets that just hit its shoulder. “Just shift back, buddy, we can discuss this. Don’t make me call backup.”

“You’d never make it to your radio in time,” says the thing, in the most bone-chillingly horrible voice Stiles has ever  _heard_ , jesus fucking christ. And then— “You look like your mother.”

“ _What.”_ Stiles aims his gun again; doesn’t even care that shooting this thing again would clearly be suicide. “Mention my mom again and get a bullet in the motherfucking  _eye,_ go ahead.”

The wolf-thing  _laughs,_ a broken, grimy sound that makes Stiles feel like he needs a really long shower. “I  _like_  you,” it says, but its voice is softening into something approximately human. The hulking shape melts and shifts, smoothly elongating until it’s just a tall, naked man striding toward Stiles with a little smile on his face. “Derek, I like this one.”

“Get away from him,” Derek says. His voice sounds wet, like he’s choking on blood, and Stiles feels a weirdly-intense thrum of worry. “ _Peter_. This isn’t about him. Come deal with me.”

“Just a quick bite first,” Peter says mildly. “I’ll need a pack, once you’re gone. Ever thought about being a wolf, Sheriff?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Stiles spits, aiming his revolver at Peter’s head. It won’t save his life, probably, but if he aims  _just right_ he can at least leave this psycho with some annoying auditory hallucinations right before he gets his throat torn out. He saw it happen to a werewolf that got hit by some shrapnel, once; brain damage in wolves is rarely permanent, but it can happen. 

“Oh well, I suppose I’ll be killing you, then,” Peter sighs, sounding genuinely sad about it. He lunges, and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and fires. 

He hears himself scream, and he feels the hot spray of blood across his face and neck. But when he waits for the pain, it never comes.

“Ow,” says Derek’s voice, and Stiles blinks one eye open. 

Derek is kneeling on the ground in front of him, clutching his arm where—oops, where Stiles’ bullet hit him, apparently. Peter is crumpled on the ground, still human-shaped and missing the majority of his throat. 

“Gross,” Stiles squeaks, and then clears his throat because he’s a goddamn professional. “I mean. Thank you.”

“Yup,” Derek says. He’s breathing hard and looking at his bloodied claws, like he’s not quite sure what just happened. 

“No, I mean…” Stiles holsters his gun and almost trips over Peter’s body to get to Derek, dropping to his knees next to him. “You really… I would have… how can I—”

“FREEZE,” says a voice from behind him—Stiles’ deputy, oh great,  _now_ the cavalry shows up? “Both hands up, wolf. Do it slow. You okay, Sheriff?”

“Fine, I’m fine. Cool down, Greenberg, Derek’s not dangerous.”

“He’s got  _blood_ on his claws, Stilinski,” Greenberg says, making a face. “And you’re not fine, you’re bruised to hell and you’re bleeding from your ears, what did he—aw,  _fuck,_ did he do this, too?”

“Self-defense,” Stiles says, wincing down at the admittedly pretty damning image of Peter’s ripped-up body. “Also, Stiles-defense. The other one was gonna kill me.”

“Well thank god I got here in time,” Greenberg says. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the reinforced cuffs in my squad car. We should probably dose him a little, just to keep him docile.”

“No, damn it—” Stiles tries to stand, but his knees won’t support him yet. Derek catches his elbow, and Greenberg flashes his gun and orders him to let go. “Not  _Derek,”_ Stiles tries again, desperate. “Derek’s the one who—”

“Don’t worry about it, Sheriff,” Derek says, softly. Stiles turns to gape at him incredulously, and he looks absolutely  _finished._ There’s no fight left in him at all. “I’m a wolf and you were injured; you  _have_ to lock me up until I can be evaluated.”

“But…” Stiles knows the law, he  _does._ The fact that it’s  _stupid_ doesn’t change anything. “Okay. No wolfsbane.”

“But—” Greenberg protests.

“No. Wolfsbane,” Stiles snarls, and he thinks he sees the corner of Derek’s mouth curl up a little. 

✯ ✯ ✯

Stiles looks up Derek’s file when they get back to the station. He immediately wishes he hadn’t. 

Of course—Derek is one of  _the_ Hales, of Beacon Hills. Stiles remembers that name now, because back when he was in middle school the Hales all died when their house burned to the ground: Derek’s mother, his father, his younger sister, two aunts, an uncle and a couple of cousins. His uncle was seriously injured, comatose for over a decade.  _Peter Hale._ Stiles thought about how it must feel to rip out your own family member’s throat, and had to struggle not to vomit.

He remembers that his dad strongly suspected arson at the time, but he was blocked from digging deeper at every turn; seemed the death of a house full of werewolves didn’t warrant nearly enough alarm to support a full-on investigation. His prevailing theory, though, was that the Argent family was responsible. They’ve never taken credit, not  _officially_ ; but then again, no other family in California can claim to have made their fortune off the bounties of hundreds of fugitive werewolves. They’ve clearly got something of an obsession; maybe just this once, his dad thought, they just took the pursuit too far. 

The rumors never did seem to damage the Argents’ good name any; instead, Gerard Argent was elected to city council. Stiles’ dad drank a whole bottle of whiskey that night. 

“Okay, I’m getting you the fuck out of here,” Stiles says passionately after he marches right into Derek’s holding cell. “Oh, and sorry for shooting you. And about your uncle. Also.”

“Watch out,” Derek says, dully. “I’m a dangerous animal. I could rip this cuff right out of the wall if I wanted to.”

“Oh don’t be so  _dramatic_ ,” Stiles says, and he hands over the bottle of water that he’s brought in with him as pretext. “We need to find a way around the psych eval so I can let you out without being arrested for obstruction of justice.”

“I might as well be in jail,” Derek says, shoulders slumping. “I haven’t been able to keep a job in over fifteen years. Ever since they found me, made me put that W on my license.”

“So I’ll make some calls; I’ve got legal connections, and I know someone who could get you a job at the hospital, if you think you—”

“They don’t like the ‘infected’ working in hospitals, remember?. Too much risk, with the blood.”

“Well maybe—”

“There’s no  _point_ ,” Derek snaps, and Stiles sees that look in his eyes—the lost, dead look from the front page of the paper all those years ago: ‘10 Wolves Killed in House Fire; No Human Deaths Confirmed’ _—_ and thinks  _fuck no, absolutely not._

“We’re gonna rig the eval,” Stiles says, firmly, holding his hand up when Derek opens his mouth to protest. “Nope, I’m in charge, that’s what we’re doing. Be quiet. Drink your water.”

“Your deputy won’t like that,” Derek says, and then throws back half the bottle in one gulp.

“Uh…” Stiles says, watching the hungry roll of Derek’s throat. “No, that’s fine. I’ll just fire him.”

“You’ll…  _what.”_

“Yeah,” Stiles says, smiling slowly. “You want a job?”

✯ ✯ ✯

It really says something about how much the people of Beacon Hills indulge Stiles’ whims that he manages to pull it off without getting himself or Derek into  _massive_ amounts of trouble. 

It also says something about Lydia Martin. Mostly, that she is a genius.

“You owe me  _so much,_ Stilinski,” she gripes while she’s going over the paperwork for him, sitting on the floor in front of his coffee table with her legs folded primly to the side. “You’re so far in debt to me at this point that you might as well give yourself over as an indentured servant.”

“Sounds hot,” Stiles says, distracted. He keeps glancing over at Derek, asleep on the couch and snoring gently into his balled-up jacket. “Everything all squared away, then?”

“I told you when I got my law degree that I wasn’t going to let you abuse my powers for selfish reasons.”

“Because you wanted to abuse your powers for your  _own_ selfish reasons?” Stiles says, refilling their mugs with lukewarm coffee out of the French press he left sitting on the magazine stack. 

“Exactly,” she says, signing the last form with a curly flourish. “There. This’ll clear him from all assault charges where you’re concerned—and we needn’t worry about what he did to his uncle, because, well…”

“The Vanguard Act,” Stiles says, grimly. “Any werewolf who threatens the life of a human is sentenced to—”

“I know the goddamn law, Stiles; that’s kind of what they pay me for.” They peek over at Derek, furtive and guilty, and Stiles’ heart gives a helpless surge when Derek snuffles in his sleep. “Now all we need is a signature from a PhD certifying that your werewolf is physically and mentally sound, and you’ll be free to enact whatever ill-advised plans you have for the poor bastard.”

“I’m gonna deputize him,” Stiles says cheerfully, and Lydia’s tiny horrified noise is so  _adorable_ that he remembers why he had such an obsession with her in high school.

“How’s Jackson?” he says. Every once in a while, when he and Lydia are hanging out and he finds himself falling under her spell again, he makes an effort to remind himself that she’s still living with her rich, successful boyfriend who deliberately broke Stiles’ collarbone on the lacrosse field once. It helps him keep a grip on reality. 

“In Singapore this quarter,” Lydia says breezily. “If he closes this deal, we’re getting a house in Aspen.”

“You lead a difficult life,” says Stiles, while he dials Scott’s number. “Hey, dude, I need a  _huge_ favor. Are there any MDs at the hospital that you have an in with?”

“ _I think maybe Dr. Graham has a crush on me?”_ Scott says, without even asking for details. Scott is the literal best. 

“That’s great, fantastic. I’m gonna need Dr. Graham to make a house call; all she has to do is examine a werewolf I’ve got in custody, and sign papers declaring him safe for public exposure.”

“ _Dr. Graham is a urologist,”_ Scott says, and Stiles winces.

“Med school is med school, right? We just need the credentials; the rest is just… semantics.”

“ _The less I know about this the better, right?”_ Scott asks, sighing deeply.

“Good man! Give Dr. Graham my number, and make sure you use the puppy-dog eyes.”

“ _I’m against this,”_ Scott says before he hangs up. Stiles knows he’ll do it anyway, though. 

“It’s too bad we can’t just use Scott,” Stiles muses. “There’s no way to get a legally-binding all-clear from an NP?”

“Nursing is an intensely under-respected profession,” Lydia says, taking a tiny sip of coffee and making a disgusted face. “Probably because its overwhelmingly favored by women. Do you think that’s a coincidence, Stiles?”

“Oh  _boy_ , do I know better than to say yes,” Stiles says, clinking his mug against hers before downing the whole thing in one go. 

Over on the couch, Derek makes a noise like a dog whimpering and kicks one leg. Stiles can’t help smiling fondly, and he dribbles coffee all down the front of his uniform.

✯ ✯ ✯

It’s kind of a miracle how easily Derek folds into Stiles’ life.

Not to say that they don’t argue. They argue all the  _time._ All the things that end up making Derek kind of a perfect deputy—his stubbornness, his attention to detail, his willingness to call Stiles out on his shit—also happen to be his most infuriating qualities. 

“You’re fucking  _wrong_ about the robberies!” Stiles yells at him for the twentieth time. It’s hours past the end of his shift, and Gertrude at the front desk is eyeing them through the glass door of Stiles’ office like she thinks they’re about to start tossing furniture.

It wouldn’t be entirely without precedent.

“And you’re not  _listening_ to me!” Derek growls. His eyes are glowing red, and he slaps his palm against the cork-board so hard that several pins fly straight out. “They’re connected! The same perp was at every single crime scene.”

“Prove it!”

“I can find him! I  _smelled_ him,” Derek says, like that’s a normal thing to say. Stiles groans and actually sinks to the floor under the weight of his frustration.

“We can’t use that as  _evidence,_ Derek, oh my god. People are already freaking out about their security being compromised by the big scary werewolf deputy, never mind that I saw you being helplessly befuddled by a jelly donut last week—”

“I don’t understand how you eat it without getting the powdered sugar all over your clothes,” Derek grumbles, and then they look at each other and just  _crack up_  because it’s been a really fucking long day.

“We’ll find another way to get a warrant,” Stiles giggles, scooting over and leaning against Derek’s legs with loopy caffeine-fueled affection. “And I’ll buy you a bib.” 

“I like the ones printed like tuxedo-fronts,” Derek says, eyes soft-green and fond. 

Derek originally  _said_ he wanted to find his own place, but after three months went by and he kept rejecting all the places the realtor took him to see—too big, too small, too far from work, too far from the woods, funky smells, etc.—Stiles finally just bought a really nice futon to replace his couch and resigned himself to having a roommate. It could be a lot worse; Derek’s fastidiously clean, he knows how to cook, and he actually seems to be able to sense when Stiles wants to be left alone.

Stiles doesn’t want to be left alone  _nearly_ as much as he used to, before he lived with Derek, but he doesn’t examine that too closely. They eat way too much takeout and play way too much X-Box and sometimes they just  _hang—_ Stiles draped across the folded-up futon with his headphones on, while Derek sits on the floor by his feet reading the bridge section of the paper (and Stiles will  _never_ be done making fun of him for that).

They don’t talk about Derek’s family, or even what really happened the night they met. The official story is that Peter went rabid, and just came after Derek to finish the pack off. It takes almost five months for Derek to bring it up himself.

“They never found my older sister’s body,” he says one day during breakfast, out of nowhere. Stiles tries to keep chewing on his pancakes like this isn’t a terrifyingly momentous occasion. 

“Then how…” Stiles swallows thickly, and still feels the lump in his throat. “How do you know…”

“My uncle Peter was an alpha, when he came for me. If we… you have to kill another alpha, to become one. It means she’s… Laura’s dead. He came to me and invited me to join his pack, and I had no choice. If I hadn’t challenged him, he would’ve…” Derek drags a hand over his face. “Peter wasn’t himself, anymore. He was dangerous. I couldn’t just let him go.”

“I’m so sorry,” Stiles says, because it just confirms what he’s suspected all these months: Derek is  _alone._ “But, oh god, wait. Doesn’t that mean…”

“Yeah, I’m the alpha now,” Derek says, rolling his eyes like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever thought of. “What, you didn’t notice the red eyes?”

“Well I don’t know!” Stiles throws up his hands. “I didn’t even know werewolves  _had_ different-colored eyes; I thought maybe it was like a mood ring, or something, whatever. All I ever really learned about you guys was, uh…”

“How to kill us,” Derek says, eyes fixed on his own pancake stack. “How to identify us, and incapacitate us, and keep us in a cell. But… you saved me, instead.”

“You saved me first,” Stiles reminds him. “Like, twice, actually.”

“It was my fault to begin with.”

“It’s a little late for the guilt trip,” Stiles points out, his mouth twitching. “Accept your lot, furface: we work together, I make you sandwiches, you do my laundry, you’re kind of my best friend—”

“I’m your  _what.”_

“Uh.” Stiles chugs his orange juice to give himself time to calm down. “Well, my best friend after Scott. Scott takes precedence, we made a blood-pact when we were eleven and everything. But.”

“I…” Derek drags in a breath. “I don’t—”

“Dude,  _relax,_ just because I gave you a job and you’re sleeping in my living room doesn’t mean—”

“You’re my best friend,” Derek says, grumpily, and then stuffs his mouth full of pancakes. 

“I’m your  _only_ friend,” Stiles corrects—which is true, but it doesn’t make him feel any less warm inside. 

He changes his personalized ringtone for Derek to Queen’s ‘You’re My Best Friend’ after that, just to make him uncomfortable. They don’t talk about Peter or Laura again for a long time. 

✯ ✯ ✯

“How’s your love life going these days?” Stiles' dad asks when he comes over, and Stiles hears a muffled crash from the kitchen where Derek’s getting dinner together.

“It’s… not going,” Stiles says, shrugging. “I mean, you know how the job is. Weird hours, lots of nights. Not really a lot of time for socializing.”

“At least you’ve got Derek,” his dad says, and Stiles tries to ignore the way his throat goes painful and tight at that.

“I haven’t  _got_ Derek, Dad, come on.” Stiles knows Derek can hear every word of this conversation from the kitchen, which just makes this even more mortifying. “Derek’s my  _coworker_.”

More accurately, Derek’s his annoying, ridiculous, tragic, funny, heartbreakingly attractive live-in werewolf buddy, and if Stiles doesn’t work harder on establishing boundaries, he’s going to do something stupid like develop a huge debilitating  _crush_  on him.

And wouldn’t _that_ be the worst.

**Author's Note:**

> NO TRUST ME THIS ENDS WITH STILES RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT
> 
> I KNOW ALMOST EXACTLY WHAT I'M DOING


End file.
